Kohjinsha SC3 review

Jenn · #1 07-16-2008, 03:02 AM

I've got my full Kohjinsha SC3 review up on the front page now. It's really long, but there are 50+ photos and a little video to break up the text. I incorporated your questions in it as well and will continue to field questions and take requests for the next week or so. You can do that here or in the comments section of the review.

Zealot · #2 07-16-2008, 03:40 AM

Great review Jenn. I love the care and attention to detail you brought to it. You sold me, after I replace my Eee, a Kohjinsha is next on the list.

Linked to it from Mobility HERE.

Z

bloodavatar · #3 07-16-2008, 06:20 AM

Love the extensive review... this device looks amazing! I would of ordered it already if it was a bit cheaper.

jhoff80 · #4 07-16-2008, 08:00 AM

Is the external GPS antenna necessary to get a fix? I thought that there was an internal antenna as well.

Jenn · #5 07-17-2008, 04:51 PM

There's a lot of Q&A going on in the comments section of the review, including some discussion of the GPS.

The short of it is that I think the slide-out port is the internal GPS antenna (I'm not 100% sure because all the paperwork that came with the SC3 is in Japanese). I wasn't able to get a fix without the external antenna, but I haven't tried it in an open area outside yet. So far, though, it hasn't been successful indoors (the external antenna had no problem here) or outside on balcony.

Jenn · #6 07-17-2008, 04:57 PM

Joe suggested in the comments that I take a look at a DXVA checker to see what the SC3's chipset supports. Here are the results:

The results from his ATI HD3870 can be seen here.

I don't know how to interpret the results, but checking the DXVA support came out of trying to test Poulsbo's HD H.264 decoding capability.

jhoff80 · #7 07-17-2008, 07:29 PM

Yeah, that was me on the comments section. As far as I can tell from that, it SEEMS like it should work. I am not all that familiar with the DXVA checker program myself, so I posted on the doom9 forum (where there's a long thread for the Media Player Classic Home Cinema versions that support DXVA) to see if anyone could help confirm that from the info you've given.

It might just not work with the 1080p video, or it might be something with the actual program not supporting that chipset, I'm not sure if that's necessary or anything. If there's a response on doom9 I'll give an update here.

Edit: Though if its not too much trouble, could you try a 720p video as well? Here's a 720p one that works fine with DXVA on my video card.

http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=8419&clipid=2

720p might even play fine on the processor, not entirely sure, (probably not unless using CoreAVC though) but if you could check the filter options again as before, that'd be great.

Jenn · #8 07-18-2008, 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhoff80

Yeah, that was me on the comments section.

Now I know how Lois Lane felt! Superman and Clark Kent are the same person?! B-b-b-but, I talked to Joe on the front page yesterday, I swear, while he was signed in as jhoff80 on the forums. How can that be?

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhoff80

Though if its not too much trouble, could you try a 720p video as well? Here's a 720p one that works fine with DXVA on my video card.

http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=8419&clipid=2

720p might even play fine on the processor, not entirely sure, (probably not unless using CoreAVC though) but if you could check the filter options again as before, that'd be great.

It plays a lot better than the 1080p one, but it's still behind the audio and the "Not Using DXVA" note is still there in the filter options.

jhoff80 · #9 07-18-2008, 06:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jenn

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhoff80

Though if its not too much trouble, could you try a 720p video as well? Here's a 720p one that works fine with DXVA on my video card.

http://www.dvdloc8.com/clip.php?movieid=8419&clipid=2

720p might even play fine on the processor, not entirely sure, (probably not unless using CoreAVC though) but if you could check the filter options again as before, that'd be great.

It plays a lot better than the 1080p one, but it's still behind the audio and the "Not Using DXVA" note is still there in the filter options.

Hmm. I did manage to get one response from the doom9 forums, that "It seems this people have a new Intel G45 chipset, with bitstream acceleration support for VC1, H264 and Mpeg2. Maybe mpc will require some modifications to works with G45, because all graphics cards didn't decode exactly the same way..." I gave him the little info that I know on the chipset, but it appears like it won't work for now, even though it does seem to have the capability. A little frustrating but what brand-new technology ever isn't?

One more little thing out of curiosity, should be much easier than everything else.

Could you just run CPU-z located at : http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php and at least give screenshots of the CPU and mainboard tabs, and the main tab from GPU-z located here: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/ ? It might misreport a couple things since its all so new, but still it might be nice for information purposes, since some of the technical details are still a little vague on the conics site, and since I can't read Japanese to check out the Kohjinsha site.

Jenn · #10 07-18-2008, 09:28 PM

Here you go!

jhoff80 · #11 07-18-2008, 09:45 PM

Awesome, thanks.

As I suspected, it doesn't recognize quite a bit of stuff since its so new, but that's okay.

SeniorDad · #12 07-25-2008, 08:44 AM

Anybody out there brave enough to try this?

My SC3 is due today (if the mailman ever gets here), I'll give it a shot. Seems to address some of the issues mentioned.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...rsion&lang=eng

Replevin · #13 07-25-2008, 12:40 PM

Good luck. My SC3 is still on its way. That version is two versions from the driver Jenn has installed on her SC3. From reading the read me, however, it doesn't appear that a lot of the issues are addressed (although they are identified).

I also noticed these drivers, although this is intended as a developer release. US15w is the chipset with the GMA 500. I don't know what is included in this release, but wanted to pass it along in case someone was brave enough to try it.

"Note: IEGD 9.0 is Gold for all chipsets except US15w which is at a Beta 3 pre-release state. Please review the license included with the code for details."

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...rsion&lang=eng

Lolento · #14 07-25-2008, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Replevin

Good luck. My SC3 is still on its way. That version is two versions from the driver Jenn has installed on her SC3. From reading the read me, however, it doesn't appear that a lot of the issues are addressed (although they are identified).

I also noticed these drivers, although this is intended as a developer release. US15w is the chipset with the GMA 500. I don't know what is included in this release, but wanted to pass it along in case someone was brave enough to try it.

"Note: IEGD 9.0 is Gold for all chipsets except US15w which is at a Beta 3 pre-release state. Please review the license included with the code for details."

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Deta...rsion&lang=eng

These drivers are for XP it seems.

Replevin · #15 07-25-2008, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lolento

These drivers are for XP it seems.

Strange. You are correct - Vista is not explicitly mentioned in the documentation.

You can see, however, that the link is for Vista "OSFullName=Windows+Vista" - which is how I got to that page in the first place.

See, e.g., this link:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/filt...=153&submit=Go!